The industrial zone of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, located in Ukraine’s city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, Mykolaiv region, was attacked by the Russian forces with missiles at 12:20 AM on 19 September, reports Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency Enerhoatom.
“A missile fell down 300 metres away from nuclear reactors,” the message reads. The shockwave damaged the plant’s building and broke more than 100 windows. A crater with a diameter of 4 metres and depth of 2 metres was formed at the spot of the strike.
As a result of the shelling, one of the hydropower units of the Oleksandrivsk hydropower station, part of the South Ukraine power complex, and three high-voltage power lines stopped operating.
All three power units of the station remain operational, no people were harmed, the message continues.
Enerhoatom called for immediate stop of “nuclear terrorism acts”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky published photos of the territory subjected to the strike.
“At night, a missile fell 300 meters from the Pivdennoukrainsk NPP. There was a short-term power outage. Windows were damaged in buildings on the territory of the NPP. The invaders wanted to shoot again, but they forgot what a nuclear power plant is. Russia endangers the whole world. We have to stop it before it's too late,” Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post.
The Russian side has not yet commented on the shelling.
Previously, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. On 17 September, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that the plant had been reconnected to Ukraine’s electricity grid. In early September, the IAEA experts published a report upon their visit to the plant. The report said that creating a “protection zone” around the facility’s premises was a necessary solution to prevent the potential damages caused by shelling which might lead to “a nuclear incident”. Moreover, the report noted that the facility’s personnel was in low spirits and physically exhausted.
